Seeing Airto Moreira last weekend in Telluride has me going back into Miles Davis’ early 70’s stuff. Airto was percussionist on ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘Live/Evil’, among others, and toured with Miles. I came across this 1970 show from the Fillmore West in San Francisco - a lineup which included Airto.

They were opening for another group of musicians. Who were they? Well, let’s think about this. It’s 1970. San Francisco. Who could it possibly be? You guessed right, this April night in San Francisco, Miles Davis and his crew opened for the Grateful Dead. Can you imagine?? Well, we can try our best to recreate the night 36 years later.

Here’s Miles’ set, with this lineup:

Miles Davis - trumpet
Steve Grossman - soprano saxophone
Chick Corea - electric piano
Dave Holland - bass, electric bass
Jack DeJohnette - drums
Airto Moreira - percussion

April 12, 1970
Fillmore West Auditorium
San Francisco, CA

1. It’s About That Time - 10:38
2. Directions - 11:58
3. I Fall in Love Too Easily - 1:46
4. Sanctuary - 3:46
5. Footprints - 10:23
6. Agitation - 1:46
7. No Blues - 7:40
8. Bitches Brew - 14:20
9. Spanish Key - 11:11
10. The Theme - 0:46

To round out the evening, the Dead hit the stage. Now you don’t think I’d leave you high and dry after listening to Miles and company kick off the evening, do you? The entire Dead set, my friends, is streaming right here.

Is this cool or what? But wait, there’s more (I know, I sound like an infomercial).

• Check out Dark Funk for 3 more full Miles shows from ‘68 and ‘69.
• Also check out MoogPower for ‘Panthalassa’, a Bill Laswell mixed album of Miles’ early 70’s stuff. Very cool.
• Look into Miles’ music on Amazon. I recommend this.

Jazz Miles Davis

I just returned from a much needed vacation in one of the most beautiful spots on earth: Telluride, Colorado. That pic above is the view from my parents’ place. Not bad, eh? I timed my trip to coincide with the Telluride Jazz Celebration; three days of fun in the sun rain featuring Herbie Hancock, Soulive, Terence Blanchard, Ernie Watts, and Regina Carter, among many others. Of those others were the guests of honor, Brazilian jazz legends, percussionist Airto Moreira and his wife, singer Flora Purim.

Airto met Flora in Rio de Janeiro in 1965. A couple years later, he followed her to New York City, where he met up with bassist Walter Booker, who introduced Airto to jazz greats like Cannonball Adderly, Lee Morgan, Paul Desmond, and Joe Zawinul. It was Zawinul who recommended Airto to Miles Davis for the Bitches Brew sessions in 1970. Airto and Zawinul also went on to form Weather Report with Wayne Shorter, Miroslav Vitous, and Alphonse Mouzon.

Watching Airto over the weekend was something to behold. I was a volunteer stagehand for the festival, and helped Airto and his band (Eyedentity) set up for a late night gig at the Telluride Conference Center. The man does absolutely amazing things with an assortment of latin percussion instruments, including his voice. Just really cool stuff. One of the songs that really hit me hard was “Tombo in 7/4″, an Airto original that really lets loose with the percussion. Every band member had percussion in hand, and away they went. The version here is a little faster paced than what I heard in Telluride. It’s one of those songs in which it’s humanly impossible to sit still (which I did see some people doing - they must have been dead).

Airto Moreira: Tombo in 7/4 (mp3)

Bonus: Miles Davis (with Airto on percussion): Sivad (mp3) - from Live/Evil

• Airto’s Official Site
• Airto on Amazon

Jazz, Latin

Picture yourself in Berlin in the year 1967. You step from the chill of an early November night into the Berliner Philharmonie, a beautiful, modern concert hall built just a few years earlier.

You take your seat and the house lights go dim. The spotlight hits the stage. Tony Williams takes a seat at his drum kit; Ron Carter picks up his bass; Herbie Hancock sits down at his piano; Wayne Shorter appears with his tenor sax; and out shuffles Miles with his trumpet, a vision of undisputable cool.

I mean, does it get any better than this? What really blows my mind with this performance is that every member just shines; all five are given the spotlight, and all five do not waste a moment. Not really surprising, given that the five are huge legends in jazz… Some of my favorite moments here are listening to the percussion of Tony Williams. That man can bang them sticks in ways you’ve never heard.

Miles Davis Quintet
Live at the Berlin Philharmonie
4 November 1967

Miles Davis: trumpet
Wayne Shorter: tenor saxophone
Herbie Hancock: piano
Ron Carter: bass
Tony Williams: drums

1. Agitation
2. Footprints
3. ‘Round Midnight
4. No Blues
5. Masqualero

Want this show? Click here.

Bonus: Douglas over at Crossword Bebop (cool name!) has a video performance of “Footprints” up on his site ; also from Germany, 1967.

Buy The Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-68: The Complete Columbia Studio

Jazz Miles Davis

Another weekend comes to a close, and Ickmusic focuses tonight on the jazz violin legend, the late Stephane Grappelli. Born in Paris in 1908, he started off his music career as a silent film pianist. Then he met Django Reinhardt, and everything changed. They formed the “Quintette du Hot Club de France” in 1934. Grappelli dropped out of the band during World War II, but his music career stayed strong until the end of his life in 1997.

He played with a hell of a lot of folks: Oscar Peterson, Jean Luc Ponty, Earl Hines, David Grisman, Yo-Yo Ma, and many others; and would you believe Pink Floyd? I found out tonight that Grappelli actually was in the recording studio for “Wish You Were Here”, and actually plays in the closing seconds of the song. Here’s part of an interview with Roger Waters:

N.S. Didn’t you also use Stephane Grappelli on the album somewhere?

R.W. Yeah. He was downstairs when we were doing ‘Wish You Were Here’. Dave had
made the suggestion that there ought to be a country fiddle at the end of it,
or we might try it out, and Stephane Grappelli was downstairs in number one
studio making an album with Yehudi Menuhin. There was an Australian guy
looking after Grappelli who we’d met on a tour so we thought we’d get
Grappelli to do it. So they wheeled him up after much bartering about his fee
- — him being an old pro he tried to turn us over, and he did to a certain
extent. But it was wonderful to have him come in and play a bit.

N.S. He’s not on the album now, though?

R.W. You can just hear him if you listen very, very, very hard right at the
end of ‘Wish You Were Here’, you can just hear a violin come in after all the
wind stuff starts — just! We decided not to give him credit, ‘cos we thought
it might be a bit of an insult. He got his #300, though.

So if you throw on some headphones and listen to the last several seconds of “Wish You Were Here”, you’ll hear a very very faint violin. Here’s a 30 second clip of the last part of the song. Listen right at the 20 second mark. See? I’m not crazy.

Stephane Grappelli: Caravan (mp3) | You Took Advantage of Me (wma)

Now, Stephane is credited with Caravan, but I don’t hear a violin on that track. I’ll need an expert to come in and tell me how he contributed to this tune. Nick over at Jazz and Conversation? The tune absolutely smokes. You’ll see what I mean.

Buy Stephane Grappelli’s music.

Jazz

There’s always time to kick back, relax, and take in some good classic-style jazz. Mulgrew Miller is an amazing pianist (as you’ll hear). He is a veteran of Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and has gone on to success as a leader of his own trio. Last year saw the release of “Live at Yoshi’s, Volume 2″, recorded in 2003 at the Bay Area’s premier jazz club, Yoshi’s.

This one caught my ear recently while listening to Sirius Pure Jazz. Hope you enjoy it…

Mulgrew Miller Trio: Road Life (mp3) - from Live at Yoshi’s, Vol. 2

Jazz

I first heard this version of “In the Still of Night” on Vin Scelsa’s show on Sirius (Sunday Night Idiot’s Delight). I’ve always been a fan of the 1956 original, recorded by the Five Satins and written by leader Fred Parris. But to hear this wacked out, in-your-face brass band version put a whole new spin on the song’s greatness and beauty.

This one was recorded by Lester Bowie Brass Fantasy, and released on 1998’s ‘The Odyssey of Funk and Popular Music’. They give the brass band treatment to such songs as “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, Marilyn Manson’s “Beautiful People”, and even the Spice Girls’ “Two Become One”.

From the 1970s until his death in 1999, Lester Bowie was the preeminent trumpeter of the jazz avant-garde — one of the few trumpet players of his generation to successfully and completely adopt the techniques of free jazz. Indeed, Bowie was the most successful in translating the expressive demands of the music — so well-suited to the tonally pliant saxophone — to the more difficult-to-manipulate brass instrument. Like a saxophonist such as David Murray or Eric Dolphy, Bowie invested his sound with a variety of timbral effects; his work has a more vocal quality, compared with that of most contemporary trumpeters. In a sense, he was a throwback to the pre-modern jazz of Cootie Williams or Bubber Miley, though Bowie was by no means a revivalist. Though he was certainly not afraid to appropriate the growls, whinnies, slurs, and slides of the early jazzers, it was always in the service of a thoroughly modern sensibility. And Bowie had chops; his style was quirky, to be sure, but grounded in fundamental jazz concepts of melody, harmony, and rhythm. – from All Music

Lester Bowie Brass Fantasy: In the Still of the Night (mp3) - from The Odyssey of Funk & Popular Music

Jazz

During the month of July 1964, Hammond B-3 whiz Jack McDuff was in a New York studio with tenor sax player Red Holloway, Joe Dukes on drums, and a 21 year old George Benson on guitar. The tracks they recorded were released on assorted LP’s between ‘65 and ‘69, but were compiled on a 1997 release called Legends of Acid Jazz.

This one will roll you through the mid week. This is their take on Horace Silver’s “Opus de Funk.” The album cover above has nothing to do with this track, but it’s so damn cool, I just had to include it. The world lost Brother Jack in January of 2001 at the age of 74. Another legend who will live on forever through his talent on the B-3.

Jack McDuff: Opus de Funk (mp3)

Jazz

Reading the story today about the “Piano Man” inspired me to showcase some quality piano work tonight. Did you all see this? A man shows up in a suit, soaking wet, on the Isle of Sheppey in the UK. He says absolutely nothing to anyone, is taken to a hospital, and sits down at a piano and plays for hours. Read the full story here.

Well, last June, I was listening to a live radio simulcast of the Playboy Jazz Festival from the Hollywood Bowl, and had the pleasure of hearing the sounds of the Michel Camilo Trio.

The artistry and virtuosity of Michel Camilo bridges the genres of Jazz, Classical, Popular and World music. He is a pianist with a brilliant technique and a composer who flavors his tunes with the spice of Caribbean rhythms and jazz harmonies.

I found this tune on Michel’s web site. The man flies on the keys. I’m positive he would give the ‘piano man’ a run for his money.

Michel Camilo Trio: See You Later (mp3)

Jazz

when a Google image search on “Madhouse” brings back a cartoon toilet bowl with an alien eye sticking out of it, you must post it. oh yes, you must.

This tune starts with a young lady’s moans of erotic pleasure. Did I get your attention? Good. From here, the drums kick in and we’re off on a Princely funky jazz adventure. The song showcases Eric Leeds on sax, and Prince on pretty much everything else. I posted from this album before, and if you want to purchase the CD, it’ll cost you a few tanks of gas (for a used one), but here goes anyway…

Madhouse: Seven (wma)

Funk, Jazz

I listened to sides 3/4 of Miles Davis‘ ‘Bitches Brew’ on the way home from work today. Windows down, volume way up… it had been a while since I took a listen to this groundbreaking album, and I felt compelled to share a tune for the uninitiated…

…the stellar “Miles Runs the Voodoo Down,” echoes the influence of Jimi Hendrix; with its chuck-and-slip chords and lead figures and Davis playing a ghostly melody through the shimmering funkiness of the rhythm section, it literally dances and becomes increasingly more chaotic until about nine minutes in, where it falls apart. Yet one doesn’t know it until near the end, when it simmers down into smoke-and-ice fog once more. - review from All Music

Miles Davis: Miles Runs the Voodoo Down (wma) - From: Bitches Brew, 1970.

Jazz Miles Davis